There are a growing number of people in the Muslim lands who carry a kind of hatred for strongly practicing Muslims. This is especially notable inside of Saudi territory, and is likely partly a legacy of the decades of heavy handed religious police.

Looking deeper at this matter, though, this is really an issue of an incomplete implementation of Islam.

Many ignorant Muslims in the Muslim lands come to hate religious people because they seem them as preventing them from having fun and enjoying life, and there is some basis to this criticism. There are two main factors at play here:

1) A lack of halal sources of enjoyment.

2) Exposure to haram sources of enjoyment.

The first issue is largely a problem of modernity, and the second issue results largely from a failure of al wala wal bara.

Pleasure and Enjoyment: Tradition vs. Modernity

Enjoyment is very highly relative; a starving person can derive more enjoyment from a piece of stale bread than a spoiled, wealthy person can derive from a seven course meal in a world-class restaurant. Enjoyment is also often highly social; sharing a meal of inferior quality with close friends or family is almost always more enjoyable than eating a higher quality meal alone.

عَنِ النَّبِيِّ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ لَيْسَ الْغِنَى عَنْ كَثْرَةِ الْعَرَضِ وَلَكِنَّ الْغِنَى غِنَى النَّفْسِ

The Prophet ﷺ said “Wealth is not in having many possessions. Rather, true wealth is the richness of the soul.” [Muttafaqun alaih]

عَنْ وحشي بن حرب قَالُوا يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ إِنَّا نَأْكُلُ وَلَا نَشْبَعُ قَالَ النَّبِي صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ فَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَفْتَرِقُونَ قَالُوا نَعَمْ قَالَ فَاجْتَمِعُوا عَلَى طَعَامِكُمْ وَاذْكُرُوا اسْمَ اللَّهِ عَلَيْهِ يُبَارَكْ لَكُمْ فِيهِ

Washi ibn Harb reported: They said, “O Messenger of Allah, we eat but we are not filled.” The Prophet ﷺ said, “Perhaps you eat separately?” They said yes. The Prophet said, “Eat your meals together and mention the name of Allah over it, for you will be blessed in it.” [Sunan Abu Dawud 3764, hasan according to al Albani]

Modern lifestyles attack both of these sources of enjoyment; on one hand, most hardship and hunger is removed from people’s lives, and on the other hand, social contact is greatly constricted.

The United Nations and those who agree with them claim that they are making people happy by trying to remove all hardship and trials from people’s lives, and technologists claim that they are making the human condition easier by having machines replace human beings.

In traditional settings, the levels of social contact and togetherness are much higher. People go to communal wells to collect water in the morning, and chat while waiting for their turn to collect water. They may go to the river together to wash clothes and chat together or even sing songs together while washing.

Child rearing, while challenging, is a huge source of joy and happiness, and people now avoid having children because they want to get better positions inside of the lucrative supply chains of modern technology. In societies where people have a lot of children, they have a saying that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Raising children is a highly collaborative experience, where a mother may get help from grandparents, in-laws, cousins, and neighbors, and at times may reciprocate by helping others with caring for their children.

Even a community fighting for its survival can be a great source of happiness; imagine the happiness a wife experiences when her husband goes away to battle and she doesn’t know if he will ever return. Then he returns, not only safe and sound, but carrying war booty which will enrich the community. Imagine if she has a friend whose husband is killed – she may go to comfort her and help her bear her loss, but this experience of her friend’s loss will deepen her appreciation of her husband surviving.

The modern Western lifestyle has removed all of this. Water appears instantly from a faucet. Washing clothes only requires interaction with a machine; no interaction with fresh air, running water, or friends and neighbors. While waiting for the clothes washing machine to finish, women often watch television; an empty and inadequate replacement for social contact.

Food is easy to come by, such that large amounts of food are often dumped in the trash. There is no suspense about where the next meal is going to come from, so people become busy with trying to lose weight. Thus, a husband bringing delicious food home to his wife becomes a curse rather than a blessing. Rather than this food increasing her in love for him, it may cause her to resent him.

Children are sent off to school, and instead of reciprocating with neighbors and collaborating in community child care, fees are paid to a school, or taxes are paid to a government that then provides industrialized child care.

There is no perceived presence of existential danger or struggle, so people try to fill the emptiness with extreme sports like bungee jumping, motorcycling, hang gliding, skiing, water skiing, racing, dirt biking and mountain biking, climbing, sports and other such pastimes, all of which consume huge amounts of resources without producing anything.

Since marriage is no longer essential for survival, the bond between husband and wife is weakened to the point of abandoning marriage entirely, replacing it with a string of girlfriends and boyfriends, dating apps and sexual fetishes.

Since people spend more time sitting on computers and working with machines than having meaningful social contact, they turn to alcohol, drugs, and music to have stronger social connections and shared experiences.

Since children no longer make economic sense, people replace them with pets and dogs to fill the emptiness.

Then along come religious people into this modern context.

They tell women not to go out unnecessarily to avoid fitna, essentially demanding that women be socially isolated.

They tell the people to fast and be moderate in eating, while people want to fill the emptiness in their souls with gluttony.

They tell the people not to use contraception, when having many children early will make it more difficult to attain high status in the modern system and have access to the money required to enjoy all of the expensive “fun” that system offers.

They tell people that extreme sports are wasteful and unnecessary, and that playing Western sports is imitation of kuffar. They tell women not to ride horses or bicycles to avoid being immodest.

They tell people to avoid haram relationships, while halal relationships are extremely difficult and expensive.

They tell childless people who have delayed marriage to fulfill the insane demands of modernity not to keep dogs.

They tell people deprived of social contact, depressed and isolated, to avoid going to social settings and events like concerts and parties where alcohol and drugs are consumed, where people dance and listen to music, where temporary happiness, intense social connections, and even love and sex can be found on demand.

At the same time, taking the kuffar as allies and adopting their technology, especially in terms of media, results in dangling all of this haram and wasteful fun and enjoyment in the faces of the Muslims. Muslims travel to the West and study in the universities of the kuffar, and get exposed to huge numbers of naked women, parties, and dating. They see videos on TV and social media of music concerts with ecstatic fans screaming and cheering in joy. They watch videos of all kinds of amazing feats in extreme sports. They watch heart-warming videos of cute dogs playing with babies. They see sports stars, entrepreneurs, musicians and actors who use drugs and commit zina being honored and revered. They see women traveling alone, playing sports in public, having money, independence, and professional achievements, and having their beauty and fashion admired by handsome men.

Very few are aware that the way of life of the kuffar depends on the murder and enslavement of millions of people, including millions of Muslims. The ignorant are heedless of the reality that the waste associated with this way of life threatens to plunge humanity into an era of famine, plague, and war. They don’t connect the extreme weather events and suffering to the rampant sin and corruption caused by this lifestyle. All they see is a world of fun and excitement, and people with beards trying to prevent them from accessing it.

قَالَ رَبِّ بِمَاۤ أَغۡوَیۡتَنِی لَأُزَیِّنَنَّ لَهُمۡ فِی ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلَأُغۡوِیَنَّهُمۡ أَجۡمَعِینَ
إِلَّا عِبَادَكَ مِنۡهُمُ ٱلۡمُخۡلَصِینَ

“[Iblees] said, “My Lord, because You have put me in error, I will surely make [disobedience] attractive to them on earth, and I will mislead them all
Except, among them, Your chosen servants.” [15:39-40]

This hatred is especially notable in a nation like Saudi Arabia, because both of these factors – the exposure to haram enjoyment, and the prevention from both halal and haram enjoyment – were especially intense. In terms of exposure to haram enjoyment, the number of young Saudis who studied in the West is especially high compared to other Muslim countries due to higher wealth levels, and so was their access to television and internet.

With halal enjoyment, they have suffered from disconnection from nature due to higher availability of toxic luxuries like cars and air conditioning, and disintegration of social connections due to relying on machines and servants rather than family and community. They also faced intense restrictions on halal enjoyment in the form of restrictions on marriage, with many youth forced into unhappy arranged marriages for financial and political reasons, and slavery was outlawed at the request of the British.

And with haram enjoyment, they faced some of the harshest restrictions in terms of prevention of mixing, music, and other entertainment. This dynamic is the key to understanding the rising trend of atheism and hatred of the religion which is affecting Muslim countries.

Incomplete Systems

This brings us to the more fundamental problem:

أَفَتُؤۡمِنُونَ بِبَعۡضِ ٱلۡكِتَـٰبِ وَتَكۡفُرُونَ بِبَعۡضࣲۚ فَمَا جَزَاۤءُ مَن یَفۡعَلُ ذَ ٰلِكَ مِنكُمۡ إِلَّا خِزۡیࣱ فِی ٱلۡحَیَوٰةِ ٱلدُّنۡیَاۖ وَیَوۡمَ ٱلۡقِیَـٰمَةِ یُرَدُّونَ إِلَىٰۤ أَشَدِّ ٱلۡعَذَابِۗ وَمَا ٱللَّهُ بِغَـٰفِلٍ عَمَّا تَعۡمَلُونَ

“So do you believe in part of the Scripture and disbelieve in part? Then what is the recompense for those who do that among you except disgrace in worldly life; and on the Day of Resurrection they will be sent back to the severest of punishment. And Allah is not unaware of what you do.” [2:85]

Islam is a complete system. Like any complete system, the absence of one part leads to a dysfunctional system. Some parts negatively affect the performance of the system, and other more critical parts render the system completely non-functional.

The human body is such a system; losing a limb or both eyes does not render the system dysfunctional, but it severely reduces the functioning of the system. Losing an essential organ like the liver or heart renders the system completely non-functional.

In the case of the loss of the liver, the body can continue to live for a while, but will quickly become overloaded with toxins and die.

A car is also a system. It can function without a seat, a hood, a windshield, or a muffler, but if it loses its radiator or a wheel, it quickly becomes non-functional.

If a person only saw one car in his life, and it was a car missing two wheels, they would probably view cars as being strange and useless. Without seeing and experiencing a functional car with four wheels, it would be hard to expect them to truly appreciate the value of a car.

Likewise, it is not realistic to expect someone to be willing to save money and make sacrifices to buy and maintain a non-functional car, especially when they don’t truly understand what a functional car is like or how it could affect their life.

Islam, in the modern world, is a way of life, a system, which in almost all cases is missing essential parts.

What remains of Islam are a few rituals; the salah, zakat, the two Eids, recitation of the Qur’an, and a set of personal commands and prohibitions.

We are no longer protected by mujahideen in the path of Allah. Instead, we rely on oppressive national police and military forces. Even in the few countries that still have Islamic criminal law, there is no Islamic commercial law, so economic opportunities are restricted by oppressive tariffs, taxes, and labor regulations. Marriage possibilities are restricted by ever more demanding expectations of professional and educational attainment.

Islam, modified to coexist with the liberal, secular world order, is no longer a functional system, and it’s no longer Islam. Rather, it is a burden which seems to limit one’s success and enjoyment within the liberal, secular world order.

One of the reasons Christendom rejected Christianity in favor of secularism is because it demanded that they tolerate injustice, misery, and oppression and wait patiently for their reward in the afterlife. As a result, they have gone to an extreme of seeking pleasure in dunya instead. Islam is distinct from this extremism in that it balances the concerns of both the dunya and the akhira.

رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ

“Our Lord, grant us good in this world and good in the Hereafter and save us from the punishment of the Hellfire.” [2:201]

This modified Islam thus simulates the conditions that lead to the rise of secularism among the Christians; Muslims are told to deny themselves enjoyment in this world and suffer under extreme injustice, not standing against it or fighting for fear of being labeled “terrorists,” and they are told to wait for their reward in the akhira.

A “deen” is a holistic way of life. The commands and prohibitions of Islam are not just personal guidelines and a path to spiritual salvation; they are parameters for the construction of an Islamic society. Substituting the commands of sharia for other systems of law results in the construction of a society where the commands and prohibitions of Islam seem strange and out of place.

This process is an essential element of the war against Islam, because it is the means by which the general masses of Muslims are convinced to oppose those who actually strive to implement and establish Islam as a holistic way of life.

The key to combatting this is first to implement the commands of Allah such that we know the sweetness of iman and the joy, happiness, and tranquility that Allah azza wa jal bestows upon the believer. Secondly, we have to convey the reality of an Islamic lifestyle and the happiness and enjoyment that it contains, just as the kuffar strive to spread media highlighting the pleasures and enjoyment of their way of life.

Likewise, we have to strive to highlight the misery, filth, and degeneracy of the modern, Western lifestyle, just as the kuffar seek to depict the lives of practicing Muslims as miserable. You can see constant examples of this in the media of the kuffar – they are continuously spreading media about the most practicing Muslim areas like Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan, and making their condition seem pitiful and miserable. The reality is that if you go to these places, in spite of all the material hardship you will find, you will also find that the people have a vitality, a sense of community, and a sense of purpose which is missing in the wealthy lands of the West.

The condition of the lands where Islam is strongest is one of superficial hardship, but deep contentment rooted in faith, while the condition of the West is one of superficial contentment, but deep misery rooted in ingratitude and disbelief (kufr). Thus, the spread of materialism serves to reinforce the illusion of the happiness of the kuffar and the misery of the believers.